Twitter Adds Rules To Better Combat Rape Threats, Other Abusive Talk

Twitter is handing down new rules to control abusive language, the company said Saturday, a move which follows a barrage of nasty, harassing, and threatening messages directed at high-profile female users of the microblogging site.

In a message posted to its website, Twitter says it is introducing a one-click button to report abuse and updating its rules to clarify that it will not tolerate abusive behavior.

The one-click button means that users will not have to navigate to Twitter’s help center in order to fill out an abuse form — a process some said was too cumbersome to deal with a mass of angry messages — while the new rules includes a stricture against “targeted abuse,” something which could include slamming a single user with messages from multiple accounts, creating an account purely to harass someone, or making threats.

The company also promised to devote more staff to weed out offending messages.